


the princess of river country

by theformerone



Series: Naruto Couples Week 2018 [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Jiraiya wonders why making fun of him is so funny, Light Angst, Naruto Couples Week 2018, Other, Second Shinobi War, Tsunade has a hard time coping and Orochimaru makes her laugh so hard she almost pees a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 02:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13847817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: War is hell. But when Jiraiya sings bawdy love ballads and Orochimaru makes fun of his singing voice, it makes everything a little bit more bearable.Day 6: Favorite platonic relationship





	the princess of river country

Some days, it feels like the fighting will never end.

Hiruzen-sensei sends them from one place on the front lines to the other. If they don't need Jiraiya's toads to break the enemy's defenses, they need Orochimaru's snakes to slither into enemy camp and assassinate generals. If they don't need that, they need Tsunade to save the lives of at least a hundred soldiers at the drop of a hat. 

It's exhausting, mind numbing, bone chilling work. She doesn't like it, because who likes war? Who really enjoys watching life slip through their fingers for a goal that at this point, few of them really understand? 

Tsunade trusts her teacher and she trusts her Hokage, but there are some days when she wonders whether or not this is what her grandfather died for.

Senju Hashirama had tried his damnedest to end the Warring States Period. Now two world wars had happened within twenty years of each other. She wonders what ideology had gotten lost along the way. She wonders why Konoha's legacy gets bloodier and bloodier by the day. 

They're out in the middle of fuck knows where on their way to Suna back from a brief stop in Konoha proper for new orders. There's a swath of poisoned shinobi barely clinging to life at the border of Wind Country, where the fighting is taking place. 

She slumps down on a makeshift seat, made of a fallen log Jiraiya had cut into three short stools. She pulls off her hitai-ate to rub at the Byakugō on her forehead. She's got Uzumaki blood, so her reserves are boundless wells, but the chakra in the seal needs to be replenished if she's going to spend the next forty-eight hours counteracting that damned Chiyo's poisons. Tsunade can marvel at the woman's mastery of deadly substances when she isn't tempted to wring the woman's neck for trying to kill her comrades. 

"You're stressed," comes Orochimaru's soft voice. 

He's been building the fire while Jiraiya's gone off to find them some water. They had enough ration bars to make the rest of the trip to the border bearable, but their canteens were running empty. 

Tsunade gives him a smirk and drops her hitai-ate onto her thigh. 

"How could you tell?" she asks. 

"Your radiant disposition was a good tell," he replies, a wry quirk to his lips. 

Tsunade chuckles and gives him a light shove. He rocks with the movement not because it's effected him, but because he knows it'll make her smile a bit less strained. 

"You saying I'm nicer when I'm upset?" she asks. 

"The day you get so stressed you stop being cruel is the day the sky falls on our shoulders," Orochimaru replies. 

He gives an upward glance and shrugs his shoulders once, and then twice. Then, he puts his bright yellow gaze back on her. 

"Strange," he muses. "I never thought the apocalypse would be late. Disaster is usually so punctual."

She snorts, and it leads a hideous honking laugh out of her. She covers her mouth to keep the noise down; she doesn't want them to get ambushed because Orochimaru decided to grace them with his sense of humor. 

"What's so funny?" 

Jiraiya's voice breaks through the din of her laughter. He's returned with their three thermoses slung over his arm, and a bundle of firewood in his hands. 

"Your career as a shinobi," Orochimaru says blithely, "your track record with women, your track record with men -,"

Tsunade can't help but start laughing again. And maybe it's the stress of the war and the fact that she hasn't seen Dan in weeks and that she misses home like a missing limb, but the laughter brings tears to her eyes that she can't stop and she has to clutch her stomach because she can't stop her giggles. 

"Alright, alright, alright," Jiraiya says, narrowing his eyes at their teammate. "See if I do anything nice for you ever again."

Orochimaru gives him a slow long blink that splits Tsunade's sides. 

"Oh yes," he says. "You fetching water and firewood is akin to throwing yourself on an enemy sword for my health and wellbeing. Thank you for your sacrifices."

Tsunade snorts again and she waves an arm at him in the universal symbol for 'please stop making me laugh I'm gonna pee'. 

Jiraiya drops down to his seat and passes out their canteens. Tsunade takes hers with a shaking hand, finally calming down a little bit. He throws a couple of sticks onto their fire, and Tsunade inches a little closer to it. Nights get colder and colder the closer they get to the Wind border.

The desert was a bitch and a half at night; the rapid rises and dips in temperature weren't what Konoha shinobi were used to. It was no wonder Suna was kicking their ass at the Wind border; they had the home field advantage. 

Jiraiya grumbles about having disrespectful sorry excuses for teammates while Orochimaru begins sharpening his katana. Tsunade peels off her gloves and warms her hands by the fire. She shuts her eyes and tries to feel where the laughter is still bumping around in her ribcage. It had been a while since she laughed like that. 

Things had been hard, after Nawaki had died. She only really had her boys and Dan left. Hiruzen-sensei was kilometers away both physically and emotionally. Tsunade couldn't say that she missed him all that much. Her grandfather had fought and bled and died to make sure that children never had to die on the battlefield. Now, the Sandaime Hokage had sent the last male Senju out into the battlefield, into the jaws of death. 

Tsunade was bitter and angry and mourning, and it was turning her heart.

The stress of constant healings, of summoning Katsuyu to fight and to mend, of picking up Orochimaru and dragging him halfway across Kusa on her back because his femur had been shattered and Jiraiya had been taken captive; of putting her mouth, coated in chakra on a wound of thirty senbon in the same arm and sucking the poison out of Jiraiya's arm; of her own chakra exhaustion, of slamming a crater into the earth but not being able to stand back up, of Orochimaru sending Manda to coil around her protectively while Fukasaku sat on her shoulder to talk her through her exhausted delirium. 

All of it, all of it had shaved years off of her life. Had made her grow to resent the cause she was fighting for, had made her wonder if she was fighting for anything at all. She had lost countless shinobi under her Mystic Palm, even though she was the best medical shinobi of her age, of anyone's age, in all of recorded history. Her brother was dead. Her entire family was dead. She only had Dan and her boys. 

So it was good to laugh. It was difficult, and then it was easy. Like the space in her chest was waiting for a reason to be filled with joy. There was little joy to be found in war, but Orochimaru teasing the two of them like he had when they were all genin, that was something to smile about. She hadn't seen him look so easy in months. 

" _River country had a girl, with hair blue soft and wan, she rode upon a white war horse and held a battle fan._ "

The old ballad pulls her out of her thoughts. She peers up at Jiraiya, who's singing voice is soft and low. He's got his notebook out, probably jotting some notes down for his great shinobi novel. 

" _The river country girl was strong, she slaughtered forty men, to save the lives of her loved ones and keep her family's land._ "

Her eyes damn near bug out of her head when Orochimaru picks up where Jiraiya left off. He's got his elbows on his knees, face close to the fire. He's always run a little cold like Tsunade does, so it's no surprise that he's trying to suck up as much warmth as he can. 

He opens one bright yellow eye at her, and even without the light on his face she can tell he's waiting for her to continue. She turns her gaze back to Jiraiya, who's wearing a little smile on his face. It's strained, worn by his own exhaustion, but it's there. Orochimaru's shoulders aren't stiff, and that's pretty much the same thing as his defenses being dropped.

She blinks at them, at Orochimaru and then at Jiraiya. Then she clears her throat and tries to think of the next line of the song.

" _The evil river daimyo wanted her for his bride, she took his hand and then his head, and she kept her pride."_

Her voice feels reedy and high and girlish, but Orochimaru is giving her that quiet smile of his, and Jiraiya's grinning with all his teeth. 

And maybe that's all she needed this whole time. Just a moment of quiet, in front of the fire with her two best friends. She'd follow them into the shinigami's arms, and she knows they would do the same for her. They're her boys; they have been for as long as she's known them. And Tsunade knows that in the same way, she's theirs, too. Their bond was war forged in blood and victory, and in sunny days and the sound of Hirzuen-sensei's tinkling bells. 

They had survived together this far. They would make it to tomorrow together, too. 

" _High and low I've searched to find a woman to take as my bride but nowhere did I see, a lass as gallant, strong or wise, as the princess of river country._ "


End file.
